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Gibbs'

Founded in 1914, Gibbs’ House bestrides the Upper Quadrangle and is home to 70 boys. The tone of the house is set by the adage of the Gibbs’ Family, Tenax Propositi: Strength of Purpose. More colloquially, Gibbs’ boys are encouraged to 'get stuck in', developing those interests and enthusiasms with which they arrive at the College, but also taking the initiative to strike out in original directions, seizing opportunities as they arise as well as looking to create their own.

The convivial atmosphere of Gibbs’ is helped by its geography: central common rooms, staircases and thoroughfares ensure easy integration as well as navigation. Senior boys actively seek the responsibility to welcome and help settle new ‘Gibboons’: a well-established mentoring system ensures that they play a key pastoral role in addition to the Housemaster and staff. The aim is to establish a lively dynamic in every year group founded on mutual support, respect and tolerance, principles which quicken, sustain and enrich communal living.
Gibbs’ boys take pride in taking part, to be the best that they can be; to be themselves.

History of the House

The Gibbs’ House opened in 1913. The foundation stone (for the completion of the Upper Quad) was laid in 1910 by the Marquess of Salisbury, whose father had supported Woodard.

It was designed by Maxwell Ayrton who had been commissioned to complete the Upper Quad, and named for Henry Martin Gibbs. He was a former pupil who became one of Woodard’s most devoted supporters. A member of the wealthy, high church Gibbs family of Tyntesfield in Somerset, he was passionate about the gothic buildings, especially the Chapel to which he contributed generously as well as paying for the building of Great School and other parts of the Upper Quad, of which Gibbs’ forms the western side. The Housemaster originally lived in the centre of the house where the Matron now lives; in the past, Gibbs’ matron was shared with Field’s and used to live between the two houses (now the Gibbs’ Housemaster residence).

Notable Housemasters of Gibbs’ include Dick Harris, later head of Saint Ronan’s; T A L Whittington, a county cricketer; Professor Sheppard Frere CBE, FBA, Emeritus Professor of the Archaeology of the Roman Empire at the University of Oxford; the Revd Henry Thorold, antiquarian, aesthete and author; John Bell OL and Christopher Doidge. In recent years Gibbs’ has enjoyed a particularly strong reputation for music and drama.